I am spending some time playing around with the cosmic ray muon data from an instrument in the SMU Physics Department. That instrument is located in the basement hallway of Fondren Science Building. I already setup a “dashboard” of information derived from the instrument, available here: https://blog.smu.edu/saso/projects/muon-observatory/. If you want […]
Physics
263 posts
On Saturday, we took a break from the pandemic to go outside and look for a comet. We live in a Dallas suburb, but one which has grown a lot in 10 years. The skies are not quite as dark as they used to be, but we thought it might […]
In 1970, Hall, Lind, and Ristenen (Univ. of Colorado at Boulder) published a paper in the American Journal of Physics (AJP, vol. 38, No. 10) on “A Simplified Muon Lifetime Experiment for the Instructional Laboratory.” Basically, it articulates precisely the experiment at the heart of a similar instrument at SMU. […]
I have really thrown myself into physics, since I am stuck at home (a) because there is a pandemic and (b) because SMU won’t let me on campus until tomorrow (because I was abroad when they ended work-related international travel 2 weeks ago). This has been a grand opportunity. Here […]
Muons are a gateway drug. They are just difficult enough to detect that they are really not obvious to humans. They are just easy enough to stop in material that, once you learn to spot them, you want to stop them and watch them do what they do. What do […]
Let’s end this day on a note of wonder. It’s Pi Day! (March 14, or 3-14). Pi is an irrational number… it cannot be written as the ratio of two integers. It’s a number that represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its own diameter. It shows […]
Jodi got invited by the DFW Tap Talks organization to give a short talk for the public. I tagged along for the event. I have always wanted to check out one of these “science on tap” talks, and I was not disappointed! It was a great night of 20 minute […]
SMU students are invited to explore physics through the lens of creating games and gaming experiences using interactive technologies. Coding, math, visualization, and storytelling combine in a landscape of physical laws to allow us to interact in increasingly realistic ways through a virtual space. Games may break the laws of […]
Modern Physics is an origin story of extremes. Extreme speed. Extreme smallness. It was in these corners of reality that old notions found their limits and new ideas could rise to solve mysteries. A hot cup of coffee and a cold cup of ice water, observed over hours, teach us […]
It never fails. An optical recording disc, with its numerous small grooves, causes light from a hydrogen discharge tube to spread out in a rainbow. Except this rainbow is incomplete, with only a red, a cyan, a blue, and a violet line. Where are all the other colors? Hydrogen cannot […]
Four of us stood in the lobby of the La Fonda Hotel. The beautiful space sits just off the main square in Santa Fe. You could almost feel the ghosts of the Manhattan Project walk past as people now sat, perhaps unaware, reading papers, waiting for friends, eating in the […]
Before I wanted to be a physicist – I mean, really wanted to become a physicist – I learned the joy of tinkering. I am sure it started earlier than when I remember it actually happening (memory is funny that way), the first first recollection I have of fully losing […]